Rehabilitation in heart failure.

Abstract

Introduction: Patients with heart failure (HF) have to take care of themselves (self-care) with the aim the best management of their health condition.
Aim: To assess the impact of rehabilitation in the self-care of patients with HF.
Material and Method: It is an interventional study in which enrolled 100 patients with HF (age 57 to 79 years). The study conducted in a general hospital in Athens with the participation of control group (Ν=50) who received the usual care and the interventional group (Ν=50) who received both the usual care and rehabilitation services. The rehabilitation program included exercise session 3 per week for 12 weeks. The self-care was assessed through the Hippocratic heart failure self-care scale. The statistical analysis conducted by SPSS 22.0. The significance level was at 0.05.
Results: The interventional group experienced a significant improvement of self-care compared with the control group. For instance, the total variance in the scale was -0.06±0.025 (p<0.001) between the first and second assessement. The highest improvement was observed in the sub-scales of medication regimen (p<0.001), diet (p<0.001) and exercise (p<0.001). This improevement was not associated with demographic and clinical characterists of the patients, thus the effect of rehabilitation is independent of these factors.
Conclusion: Patients´participation with HF in rehabilitation programs leads to significant improvement in self-care. Therefore, it is imperative patients with HF to be referred to special rehabilitation services to continue their health care in order apart from all the other benefits, to experience an improvement in self-care resulting in the best management of their health condition.